FAQ

Here you will find some of the most common questions answered. Please refer to the manual and tutorial section for questions around useage.

Q: What is the difference between Blender and Bforartists?

First let me point out where it is equal. It's the feature set. What can be done in the corresponding Blender version can also be done in Bforartists. There is no difference in the features. They are equal. Plus mins a few small things like hidable 3D cursor. The main difference lies in the UI and usability. Blender's usability philosophy is centered around hotkeys and speed. Bforartists usability philosophy is centered around the graphical menu. With an intuitive and easy to learn workflow. Made from an artist for artists.

Why should i use Bforartists and not Blender?

You should use Bforartists when you are not comfortable with Blender, but are with Bforartists. I have seen generations of new 3D artists fail at the Blender UI, but being fine with other 3D packages then. Commercial ones. Bforartists now offers a free open source alternative.

Obviously lots of people are happy with Blender the way it is. This is fine. Bforartists is not made to convince those people. It is made to help the people who cannot bend their brain around the Blender UI and usability philosophy.

Why don't you simply create a big Blender Addon with your changes?

Because the changes for Bforartists are not possible with an addon. Quite a few things are changes at the C Codebase. Like the whole customizable toolbar at the top, hiding the 3D Widget, the wireframe colors, or the icons for the new icon buttons. This all is C code. And even quite a few changes at the Python code would be hard to achieve by an addon. The changes are massive. In short: because it is simply not possible to do the needed changes as an addon. We need the full fork here.

Will Bforartists be updated to the latest Blender Build?

Yes. With every mayor version. It may need some days though.

Q: Why should i help Bforartists, and not Blender?

Well, you could even do both. Help Blender and Bforartists. But there are several reasons to help Bforartists. And you might find a reason for yourself too.

A few objective ones:

Your commit might not be welcome at Blender. That you offer your help does not mean that your submission is accepted then. Happened to me before with a standard feature in other 3D packages. It might of course happen that your commit is also not welcome at Bforartists, it must make sense, and fit into the concept. But here you have at least a opportunity for a second try to implement declined features from Blender. A good example is to hide the 3D cursor. In Blender they decline this idea since many years. In Bforartists it is implemented. We have icon buttons in many areas where Blender doesn't have it, and so on.

Much faster integration of new features by having a much smaller staff and pipeline, and ways fewer roadblocks. For example, Bforartists has already LMB select by default and custom wireframe colors. Which might come with Blender 2.8. Or not.

Bforartists has a completely different usability philosophy. The feature set may be the same. But with a different UI we have a different software.

Blender turns more and more into a cash cow in the last time. You have a cloud where you have to pay. You have a plugin market place. More and more new plugins are payware nowadays. And so on. Not necessarily bad things. Money is the one thing that keeps big development going. But the eco system around Blender is too cash centered for my flavour already.

Blender is too big already. Highly unflexible. With too many people pulling into opposite and/or wrong directions. Which results in faulty compromises and a stand still in more than one area.

Bforartists is independant, and creates a new eco system. Here you can escape the Blender bubble with all its fanboyism and censorship.

Q: Can you implement Feature XYZ for me?

This heavily depends. The goal of the fork is to provide a better User Interface and a better Usability. Not to reinvent Blender. So when feature XYZ falls into this category, yes. But even this is no guarantee then. I will not rewrite Blender for that, which was the reason why i had co cancel the Qt Implementation. I personally will keep my hands away from the C code where ever possible, since this is a very special and heavily undocumented beast. We already spread ways too thin with just the current UI issues, keeping the manual up to date, and keeping the fork on sync with the new Blender features.

When you are a programmer though, or know a good programmer that can implement your needed feature, or when the patch even already exists, then everything is possible. And every idea and help is welcome

Q: What happened to Andrew Price's proposal?﻿

We are not connected with Andrew Price in any way. We don't do his UI proposal here. We have our own ideas, usability philosophy and UI design. Andrew's proposal was already better than the default Blender UI design, and not bad. But not great neither. Even he has taken it back then.

Wait - circle select is now 'G' instead of 'C'?﻿ (Or similar questios regarding why Bforartists doesn't behave like Blender in many areas):

That's because Bforartists is Bforartists, and not Blender. It is an independant software. We have our own keymap and usability. You can't fix bad things without to change them. And this includes bad hotkeys.

But you can always switch to the Blender keymap when you feel more comfortable with it. And this way you can also watch and understand most of the Blender tutorials out there.

Q: Does all Blender addons work in Bforartists?

The very most does. There are just two known addons at the moment that doesn't work. Renderman for Blender, and Amaranth Toolset. For more info see the Plugin Database

Q: Why don't you work for Blender instead of making a fork?

I tried. I was not welcome. My ideas are too far away from what the Blender developers wants to do. Not a single commit would make it into their master.